


Embers

by irrationalno



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, POV Keith (Voltron), S8 AU, creepy lovable spaceship AI rep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:54:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29756460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irrationalno/pseuds/irrationalno
Summary: Keith rekindles some old memories.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Kudos: 9





	Embers

Atlas refused to let Keith in whenever Shiro slept in his rooms, even though Shiro had both instructed her to allow him to enter and Keith had his emergency passcode. Every time Keith thought he should rat her out to Shiro, he remembered the probable reason. One time he’d been lying next to a sleeping Shiro and thinking idly about how it’d feel to kiss him like that. He’d felt guilty right after, and even if Shiro would probably at least try out something like that at least once just for him, he had never brought it up. But this clearly wasn’t enough for Atlas.

He felt pretty happy about how protective she was of him. It wasn’t like he could be next to Shiro all the time anymore.

She was eavesdropping on him even now, because the doors slid open. He made sure to thank her.

Shiro was indeed sleeping, stretched out on his back on the bed, prosthetic neatly packed into a niche in the wall above the side table. Keith sat down in his sock-clad feet and simply watched his boyfriend. It had been a month of the most perfunctory meetings, Shiro locked into a long diplomatic mission that involved trade route disputes and rumours of war orphan trafficking. Now that they did not work together, Shiro was tight-lipped about the details of these missions. Keith accepted that.

He swallowed, and a warm hand settled on his head. Shiro was wide awake and looking at him. He’d taken to touching Keith like that recently, without either of them verbalising it. The first time it had happened Shiro’s dick was in his mouth, so he was destined to react to it every time it happened after that.

The other reason he liked it was the firm pressure. It just felt good. Shiro always knew.

Keith’s intrusive thoughts + Overprotective, ever-attentive ship AI = Unpredictable shit. The lights immediately dimmed and Shiro blushed. “Cool daylight please,” he murmured. The lights changed back.

“You wanna go right now, oldtimer?”

Shiro stretched luxuriously, sat up. “I thought you got something for me. That’s all?”

Keith laughed, brushed his hand over Shiro’s crotch in a quick ‘greeting’ and shook his head. “I got into my old GG storage and found some old stuff I totally forgot about.”

Shiro raised a brow. Usually Keith messaged him random things, so he clearly guessed it had to be unusual. He hadn’t shaved, and Keith’s fingers fumbled with his backpack like he was nineteen.

He handed over the pictures in a kind of quiet reverence. The only reason they existed was Shiro’s weird ‘primitivist’ streak, despite-because of his line of work: he’d picked up a disposable Kodak film camera that cost nothing, insisting analog records would outlast digital ones. Keith had been sceptical, arguing that he could take better photos with his wristpad.

All of Keith’s personal digital files had gotten corrupted somehow, leaving only a few analog prints as testament to the fact that he had not erupted fully grown from some alien planet: his childhood photos with his dad, a school trip from the foster home he’d been in longest, and these ones of Shiro in Japan.

Shiro’s eyes widened. Maybe it was one of the memories he’d lost. For a second Keith couldn’t breathe.

It had been a few months before Kerberos, and Shiro was on the cusp of 25. He’d invited Adam, Matt and Keith to accompany him on his last trip home before the launch that was sure to be a milestone in his career. Not his parents’ apartment in the city but his grandfather’s ancestral village. He hadn’t even told them his real plan until the second day; the others had assumed Shiro wanted to ski a little, reconnect with relatives. Then they brought coffee out to watch the massive scaffolding being put up in the centre of the village square.

Keith was not ashamed of his obsessive focus when entrusted with the Kodak, but his conscience still cleared when he saw Matt’s expensive full-frame camera.

For there was no sign now from the disposable’s photos that anyone else in their little party had been there. Shiro in the ceremonial outfit for the ritual, Shiro chugging back frankly illegal amounts of sake given his job, Shiro cheering the bearing of the torch up the village street, Shiro and the other village men his age singing, Shiro’s face lit into something otherworldly by the blazing hot flames as he beat the older men back from the shrine. Keith clicked through the rolls of film in his bag in a daze, quickly losing track of where Adam and Matt were, following only Shiro to the extent he was allowed, spending most of the climactic moments being trapped in the kind of drunken crowd he would have otherwise run the opposite direction from.

It was almost midnight when the trance broke, with Matt herding him away to join Shiro and Adam in one of the bars. Shiro’s face was red and he was laughing uproariously at something an older man, a local, was telling him. Keith’s Japanese was decent but this rapid fire chatter overwhelmed him. Matt was showing around his photos, to predictable acclaim. Keith was very pleased to realise he couldn’t do the same even if asked. Shiro had already forgotten about it, remembering only to tug Keith’s wool hat down over his bangs and ordering non-alcoholic drinks, for them both this time.

Keith recognised the middle-aged man who had stuck around Shiro during the ceremonies. He wondered if it was a distant relative or something, when Shiro introduced him as a firefighter, then added that Keith’s dad was one too. The man beamed at Keith and then he was suddenly facing a whole plate of fried chicken, on the house. Keith’s eyes stung with sudden tears, but he couldn’t call it tears of sadness. He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve this unthinking affection, this inclusion. He never did.

Adam didn’t act any differently from Matt even though he was literally engaged to Shiro, which made Keith feel an uncharacteristic twinge of pity for him. Which disappeared the moment he remembered he was sharing a room with Matt tonight, directly across from Shiro and Adam. To rub it in, Adam adjusted his glasses and mumbled something about Shiro finally becoming a man, and Matt collapsed into laughter. Keith inhaled two plates of chicken, still feeling the warmth from the bonfire, eyes darting to Shiro whenever someone came up to talk to him.

“You seemed happy around all that fire,” said Shiro, and Keith snapped out of his reverie.

“Thanks, I don’t have a weird complex about that or anything.”

The fact that they could joke like this filled him with giddiness and terror. He always felt like they were on borrowed time. Even forever felt like borrowed time because Shiro burned so damn bright.

“Keith. What’s on your mind?”

“That festival you took me to, that was the first time I associated fire with anything good. A celebration. Life, not death or destruction.”

Shiro put one of the pictures down on his lap and looked at him for a long moment.

He picked it up again. It was the one of him fending off a group of older men wielding blazing torches. Keith was proud of the expression he'd captured in that shot, Shiro defiant and resplendant. “That’s great. I’m glad it means something to both of us.” He was smiling, and Keith knew he was smiling back, the goofy smile no one else ever got to see.

He didn’t need to tell Shiro just how many times over the years he’d beat off to the memories of that one night. It might be disrespectful, considering the original context, but also Shiro didn’t need to be told anew he drove Keith mad and had for years. Especially that far back. Shiro had to have a general idea by now. Yeah, so he could afford to keep some secrets.

“I love you,” he blurted anyway.

“Come here, babe,” said Shiro, and Keith scrambled into his open arms.

As if on cue, the lights dimmed dramatically.

“Hey!”

“She’s very nosy. But mostly in a good way...”

“Alexa shut up,” said Keith, unbuttoning Shiro’s sleep-rumpled shirt.

The bed tilted down suddenly, tipping Keith off that warm chest. Shiro laughed even though it wasn’t funny at all.

Soon they were too preoccupied to care, but Keith would swear the light threw shadows on the walls, almost like the flicker from living flames eating up the icy darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> the festival referred to in the fic is a real, wonderful Shinto festival. i was writing something on the subject for something else and thought it fits this pairing perfectly lol. for @rainbowravioli on tumblr <3


End file.
